"But you said," he entreated, "you've always said, honey, you'd stand by me, and you will, won't you? This is the only way you can help. You will, dear, please!"
"I 'spose I air got to," she stammered, shivering. "Course I do everything ye want me to. But--but--tell me ... why."
"It's just like this," Frederick explained reluctantly. "My mother needs--money. She's got to have it. She's already borrowed a lot of Waldstricker and ... even our lake place is mortgaged to him. His sister loves me--"
The speaker felt the slender body recoil as from a blow.
"Tess!" he cried, "I don't love her. Oh, can't I get you to understand anything? If you tremble that way, you'll drive me mad. I'm only going to marry her.... Well, to pay the money, that's all."
He cut and clipped the words as though he hated them, yet finished his explanation determinedly. As keenly as a darting flame, it burned into Tessibel's soul.
"Tell me ... more," she breathed dizzily.
"It'll only mean you and I will be apart for a little while, Tess,"
stated Frederick. "When I get back home, I'm coming straight to you, and--"
"She air lovin' ye, ye said?" interrupted Tess, huskily.
"But I don't love _her_, Tess!... I love only you!... You know that, sweetheart!... You hear me, darling?"
"Yep, I hear," whispered the girl.
Frederick settled back against the rocks, drawing her into his arms.
"My father," he proceeded more calmly, "left us without any money. I suppose I didn't realize how hard it's been for mother. She's only just told me she'd mortgaged the lake place to Waldstricker and had borrowed money from him. In a way I've been awfully selfish.... I've only thought of you, dear."
Of course, now she couldn't tell him that intimate secret! If he knew, he couldn't, he just couldn't do the thing his mother demanded; and she had promised to help him. He had said it was the only way she could be of any service, and her great love rose up and demanded the sacrifice.
Tess scarcely recognized her own voice when she next spoke.
"Did ye tell Madelene--I mean Miss Waldstricker--ye'd marry her?" she asked.
"Well ... yes," stammered Frederick.
"And ye--ye--ye kissed 'er?... Oh, say ye didn't kiss 'er!... Ye didn't, did ye?"
It was a plea to which Frederick would have given worlds to truthfuly answer, "No." But his conscience, evidently sensitive in small matters, compelled an almost inaudible, "Yes."
Raging jealousy, unendurable pain, arose within her.
"But ye couldn't--be married--to 'er, Frederick. It ain't possible, it ain't!"
"I know I'm married to you," the boy assured her, swiftly. "I'd only be married to her in the eyes of the world!"
The eyes of the world, the world through which she had so far walked with proudly lifted head! Her dearly cherished love seemed to be tumbling in ignominious ruins, and that very love had left her defenseless. No one would ever know he belonged to her; that she belonged to him. She would have to creep with bowed head in assumed shame and disgrace even among the squatters.
"I'll die," she shivered, thinking of the coming spring.
His burning kisses stung her lips, through which his words tumbled one over the other.
"You can't!... You shan't die!... Tess, you shan't! I'm only going away for a little while.... You're mine, Tess, do you hear?... You've got to live and love me always! You're mine! Oh, my love! Don't cry like that!..."
The crushing strength of his arms hurt her. Suddenly another picture shot across her brain, like a searing rocket. She clung to his arm as if she feared that minute would snatch him from her. Then suppliantly she lifted not only her face, but also her hands.
"Oh, she won't be like I air been to ye--like--like--"
Frederick heard the anguish in the agonized, girlish voice.
"Not like--not like I air been to ye, darlin'. Oh, God, not that!" she cried again.
She waited in panting suspense for a fierce denial. Then she struggled frantically in his embrace. All that was alive within her--all the super-vitalized part of her soul--seemed scorched by the picture his significant silence had painted.
"Let me go!" she demanded.
Frederick tightened his arms about her.
"Not yet, not yet! Stay here, rest here, my sweet."
But again seeing that image of the small woman in her place, Tess struggled and freed herself.
"I air goin' to Daddy now," she whispered. "An' you can go home too, please."
But he caught her again to his breast.
"You belong to me!" he cried intensely. "I won't go!--I'm going to stay, Tessibel! I will--I will stay!"
Tess wrenched herself free.
"Ye c'n come again," she promised. "Some other time afore--"
Frederick caught her broken sentence and finished it.
"Yes, yes, Tessibel," he exclaimed. "I'll come back soon, very soon!"
"Sure, soon," quivered Tess, swaying, "go on, please!"
She flung up her hands, crying low in suppressed agony, as Frederick whirled from her and walked rapidly away. He had not taken ten steps before he was moved to go back, to take her again in his arms, but thinking over all that had happened, of how hard it had been to flounder through his explanation, he shut his teeth and went on.
With super-hearing, Tess listened until the sound of his footsteps died in the lane.
He had gone--Frederick--her husband! Gone to another woman! No, that couldn't be! He was hers always and forever. She sank down on the rocks--on the dear, ragged rocks, where she had watched for him and prayed for him, where life had been at its highest and best.
She tried to recall all he had said. Oh, yes, he was coming back. What did he mean by coming back? When? She dully wondered if it would be tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. Three days, perhaps, three long, interminable days to think of him and to long for him. Could she live three days? She sprang to her feet. She must see him again--now--this minute; hear him unsay that awful thing. Why, he couldn't belong to Madelene Waldstricker! Like a deer, Tess sped along the rocks in the direction of the lane. A night bird brushed a slender wing against her curls as he shot by her. To him she paid no heed save to swerve a little.
Wildly, twice, three times she cried, "Frederick!"
An owl hooted a mocking response from the willow tree nearby.
"Frederick! Frederick!" rang through the night, out over the lake, unanswered. He was gone! The realization of this brought the girl crouching, shivering to the shore, where her feet were lapped by the incoming waves. And there she lay, until as in a dream, a bewildered dream, she heard Daddy Skinner's voice calling her. By a supreme effort she gathered her senses together.